


The Brighthollow Brotherhood

by DaharMaster



Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: Friendship, Other, Tank Bonding Time(TM), especially if you've progressed beyond act ii, not sure what yet, platonic something, probably not any real spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 21:37:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14481705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaharMaster/pseuds/DaharMaster
Summary: Two very different roommates in Brighthollow find that perhaps they aren't so different, or that being different doesn't mean they can't be close friends.





	The Brighthollow Brotherhood

Months. Months? No, it couldn’t have been that long… could it?

Edér began counting things off on his fingers then shook his head with a lopsided grin. It hadn’t technically been months plural yet, but it was only days away by his reckoning on it being two months since he’d taken up with the Watcher. And how much had happened! It seemed like that rash impulsive decision to leave Gilded Vale was a memory from another life and…

He stopped the thought there. After Maerwald, and seeing the Watcher… he really didn’t want to even think about the whole ‘Awakened’ business. Abydon’s brass balls, it was hard enough to wrap his head around how the Watcher could be seeming to look at nothing, then suddenly know so much.

Truth be told, he was somewhat relieved that the Watcher had gathered more allies now and begun the process of rebuilding the ruined stronghold of Caed Nua. It wasn’t exactly teaming with life, not yet anyhow, but he could imagine it all rebuilt and repopulated. Soldiers on the battlements, priests in that damned temple to Berath—not that he had anything against Berath themself, personally, matter of fact he was beginning to see Berath not so much as a god of death, but just part of the cycle—always reminding him of Raedric… both the living and the living-but-not-living versions. Eothas’ eyes! That had been horrifying.

Now, though the Watcher liked to keep him around, and he certainly didn’t mind that, but he could take some time off, just relax, or try to anyways. It was a bit hard to relax knowing about all the terrible goings on in the world, but he knew if he didn’t at least try, it might just kill him. He’d seen it both during and after the Saint’s War.

Nope! He wasn’t going to think about that, either. In fact, no thinking. None at all. And so, the bed creaking beneath his weight in his quarters at Brighthollow, Edér laid back and closed his eyes… for a moment.

The fervent murmuring of words he couldn’t begin to make heads or tails out of from just across the room got to him almost immediately. He’d held his tongue so far but… no, he needed to say something now before he simply exploded.

“Uh, hey…” he said softly, rolling onto his side, the murmuring not stopping, “Pala… er, Pallegina was it?” The abruptness of the silence nearly knocked Edér off his bed. Kneeling before a small shrine, the Vailian turned and fixed him with a harsh stare, her head swiveling almost like an owl’s, her body hardly moving. Edér bit his lip.

For whatever reason, the two had hardly spent any time together at all. In fact, he wouldn’t even say he knew her, more just knew  _ of  _ her. That’s why sharing quarters with her had been great so far, he had never actually had to share it. But now…

“Yes?” she said at length, obviously annoyed, but obviously trying to hide it.

“I uh, well,” Edér let out a nervous chuckle, “I just… nah, forget it. Um, I’m about to make some supper, heard we got a shipment of muttom from… oh who cares. You want any?” He grinned broadly, heart in his throat.

Something in the paladin’s expression seemed to change then, though he still couldn’t read it. She blinked slowly then turned back to her shrine. It seemed that she was about to begin praying again when suddenly she sighed and all at once, the godlike simply… deflated.

“You are perturbed by my praying,” she said. It was not a question, but a statement.

“No no no! I… yeah, okay, a bit,” Edér stammered, now standing in the doorway, body tensed as if ready to spring out of the way of… something.

“I apologize,” she said softly, her voice barely audible. There was great strain in her tone, though. It was obvious she was not used to saying those words. Edér wanted to say something, or do something, but for some reason all he could do was stand awkwardly in the doorway watching the poor woman experience… he wasn’t sure what, but he could tell it was unpleasant.

“It has been, well, since I was a very young… girl since I have had to share living space with anyone other than the Frermàs,” she said after a space, “I am… unaccustomed. Indeed, I am still becoming accustomed to Dyrwood and…” Pallegina trailed off, shaking her head. She rose from her kneeling position, anxiously smoothing out the wrinkles in her flaxen colored doublet, before taking a seat on her own bed, posture unnaturally rigid even by her standards.

All the while Edér was nodding his head in understanding.

“Ahhh, I get it,” he said at last, “It’s not just that you aren’t used to livin’ with anyone but yourself or your uh… Brotherhood for company, but that you aren’t used to livin’ with anyone who ain’t Vailian.”

Pallegina’s head whipped around to fix him with both a shocked and accusatory look and her mouth opened to say something but Edér held up a hand and smiled gently, holding the hand up to halt her objection as he quickly sidestepped towards his bed and sat down opposite her. The entire time her glare never left him, like a hawk watching its prey.

“I get it,” he said, somewhat firmly, slowly lowering his hand.

“I get it,” he repeated, even louder, as if to halt any further objections, “Maybe not… entirely, but I get it. Back before the Saint’s War, neither Woden or I’d ever left Gilded Vale. Then we enlist and next thing I know we’ve been separated and I’ve been sent nearly to Readceras with a bunch of total strangers. May’ve all been Dyrwoodan but you’d be surprised just how much can vary from one village to the next. By Eothas, some I could hardly understand what they were sayin’. And let me tell you, the living conditions weren’t so… uh… spacious. Or pleasant. Didn’t have roofs neither. Technically I suppose a ditch has walls though…” He winked, grinning widely at his own joke.

Finally, Pallegina looked away for a moment, her posture slowly relaxing. When she turned back, her expression just seemed tired.

“I think yes, you do understand,” she admitted, “But I am unsure what to do. I cannot force myself to become accustomed to a foreign land faster just because I wish it…”

“Of course not!” Edér laughed, “But I think you’re lookin’ at it a bit from the wrong angle. It isn’t the land, isn’t Dyrwood you need to get accustomed too. Your problem isn’t that big. Only thing you need to get accustomed to, really, is… us.” He gestured broadly at the doorway.

“Us?” Pallegina echoed, confusion weighing heavily on her voice.

“You know, uh…” Edér stammered, then suddenly grinned, an idea springing to mind, “The Brighthollow Brotherhood.” Pallegina’s face all at once was transformed and split at the mouth as she let out an astoundingly musical staccato laugh that was almost like birdsong until she abruptly snorted. At this, her eyes shot open and grew wide and she slammed a hand over her entire face, the laughter cutting off just as suddenly.

Edér only smiled wider.

“There we go,” he said, “Now that’s more like it. See? Just downsized your problem from all of Dyrwood to just a couple folks. Not such a scary prospect now, is it?”

Pallegina cleared her throat and resumed a somewhat rigid posture, attempting to regain her composure, but a small smile created tiny dimples in her dark cheeks.

“No, it is not,” she admitted, but did not meet Edér’s eyes.

“Also, it’s only fair, we get accustomed to you. Not like anyone’s askin’ you to change who you are,” he added, “Seems prudent, though, we start with me. Since we’re, y’know…” Pallegina nodded.

“Prudent,” she agreed.

“So I’m Edér Teylecg, I was a farmer, an’ then a soldier, blew up my own god.. sort of, then a farmer again, and now I’m… whatever this is,” the Dyrwoodan began, “I still follow the god we uh… kind of blew up, I guess in case he isn’t dead. Also I like animals. Well cute ones. Or tasty ones.” Pallegina’s smile widened a little.

“May I… ask a question?” she replied. Edér nodded.

“Of course!” he exclaimed.

“Your surname… Teylecg? Was that your father’s name or… what does it mean? How do Dyrwoodan names work?” she asked, seeming almost embarrassed.

“It’s uh.. Eld Aedyran for somethin’ like ‘strong edge’ or ‘good blade’, can’t really remember, my father only mentioned it to me once, but…” Edér paused, chewing his lip in thought, “Alright, the way our names work is well… it’s a family name. Everyone I’m related to pretty much, ‘least on my dad’s side, has got the name Teylecg. And the name goes way back. And if I were to have a kid, they’d have the name Teylecg. My first name, well my parents picked it for me. Oh and my mom, she wasn’t born a Teylecg, and everyone on her side of the family’s got a different name, but when she and my father got married, she became a Teylecg.”

“I see,” Pallegina replied, nodding slowly, as if carefully studying and absorbing the information, “Why did your mother’s name change? If you had a daughter… would she also be a Teylecg?”

“Don’t rightly know why the woman’s name always changes but… that’s just how it works,” answered Edér, “And yeah, son, daughter, don’t matter. Still a Teylecg.”

“What if you were unmarried?” Pallegina blurted, curiosity now growing obvious in her voice. Edér smiled.

“Now that’s a bit of a muddy situation. Kind of depends. See if I had skipped town and wasn’t comin’ back, kid would probably end up with their mother’s name. If I was still around, if I was goin’ to help raise ‘em like a father ought to… not sure,” he explained then shrugged, “Usually just a thing nobles got to worry about though. Someone has your name, they’re entitled to somethin’. I think. Somethin’ like that. So uh, how do Vailian names work… are you just Pallegina or…?” At this, however, the Vailian suddenly looked uncomfortable.

“I am named Pallegina mes Rèi,” she said stoically, “Were I not ‘godlike’ as you Dyrwoodans speak it, I would likely have my father’s name, much like you, though perhaps my mother. It usually depends whose name is… eh… more valuable? Ah! Carries more weight, yes.”

“But because you’re godlike…” Edér said quietly, knowing he’d accidentally hit a nerve, “Mes Rèi?” Pallegina nodded stiffly.

“It is… less a name, more a title, some might say, given to all of the so-called ‘godlike’ born in the Republics,” she told him, “It means… ahhh  _ madiccho! _ I cannot translate it well. Literally it means ‘of the Lord’ but there is no lord of the Republics, and that is a very old word for it. I am sorry.”

“Hey don’t be,” Edér said in as reassuring a voice as he could, “Maybe it’s… more figurative. Well think about it, alright, a lord is what, pretty much the highest power in the land? Well if you’ve got no actual person in a fancy chair called a lord, maybe it means an even higher power. Like… the gods?”

“Hm,” replied the paladin, nodding thoughtfully, a strange half-smile crossing her face, “You know? I never thought of it like that… I think maybe you are correct. Anyhow, I believe I would have been given my father’s name, and in truth I am grateful I do not have to bear it. He was a hateful man. But the name given to me by my parents, Pallegina, the name of my mother’s mother’s mother. I bear it gladly.”


End file.
